New Poll: What should I read next???

I'm halfway through David J. Williams' The Burning Skies (Canada, USA, Europe), sequel to last year's The Mirrored Heavens, and it's been quite a wild ride so far. Kind of a trainwreck of a book, but oh so entertaining!

On the horizons, I have Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold (Canada, USA, Europe) and Mark Charan Newton's Nights of Villjamur (Canada, USA, Europe).

So now you get to decide which novel will join this august company!

The nominees are:

- Roberto Bolano's 2666 (Canada, USA, Europe)

Santa Teresa, on the Mexico–US border, is an urban sprawl that draws in lost souls. Among them are three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; and a police detective in love with an elusive older woman. But there is darker side still to the town. It is an emblem of corruption, violence and decadence, and one from which, over the course of a decade, hundreds of women have mysteriously, often brutally, disappeared.

Told in five parts, 2666 is the epic novel that defines one of Latin America’s greatest writers and his unique vision of the modern world. Conceived on an astonishing scale, and – in the last years of Roberto Bolaño’s life – with burning, visionary commitment, it has been greeted across Europe and Latin America as his masterpiece, surpassing even his previous work in inventiveness, imagination, beauty and scope.

- Metatropolis, edited by John Scalzi (Canada, USA, Europe, and Subpress)

A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment... A bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement... A courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city... A slacker in a "zero-footprint" town get a most unusual new job... and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.

Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to METAtropolis.

More than an anthology, METAtropolis is the brainchild of five of science fiction's hottest writers -- Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder and project editor John Scalzi -- who combined their talents to build a new urban future, and then wrote their own stories in this collectively-constructed world. The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before.

You're at the city limits now. See what's waiting on the other side.

- James Enge's Blood of Ambrose (Canada, USA, Europe)

Behind the king's life stands the menacing Protector, and beyond him lies the Protector's Shadow...

Centuries after the death of Uthar the Great, the throne of the Ontilian Empire lies vacant. The late emperor's brother-in-law and murderer, Lord Urdhven, appoints himself Protector to his nephew, young King Lathmar VII and sets out to kill anyone who stands between himself and mastery of the empire, including (if he can manage it) the king himself and his ancient but still formidable ancestress, Ambrosia Viviana.

When Ambrosia is accused of witchcraft and put to trial by combat, she is forced to play her trump card and call on her brother, Morlock Ambrosius—stateless person, master of all magical makers, deadly swordsman, and hopeless drunk.

As ministers of the king, they carry on the battle, magical and mundane, against the Protector and his shadowy patron. But all their struggles will be wasted unless the young king finds the strength to rule in his own right and his own name.

- Max Frei's The Stranger (Canada, USA, Europe)

Max Frei’s novels have been a literary sensation in Russia since their debut in 1996, and have swept the fantasy world over. Presented here in English for the first time, The Stranger will strike a chord with readers of all stripes. Part fantasy, part horror, part philosophy, part dark comedy, the writing is united by a sharp wit and a web of clues that will open up the imagination of every reader.

Max Frei was a twenty-something loser—a big sleeper (that is, during the day; at night he can’t sleep a wink), a hardened smoker, and an uncomplicated glutton and loafer. But then he got lucky. He contacts a parallel world in his dreams, where magic is a daily practice. Once a social outcast, he’s now known in his new world as the “unequalled Sir Max.” He’s a member of the Department of Absolute Order, formed by a species of enchanted secret agents; his job is to solve cases more extravagant and unreal than one could imagine—a journey that will take Max down the winding paths of this strange and unhinged universe.

- Chris Wooding's Retribution Falls (Canada, USA, Europe)

Frey is the leader of a small and highly dysfunctional band of smugglers, occasional pirates and sometime fraudsters. An inveterate womaniser and rogue, he and his gang make a living on the wrong side of the law, existing on the fringes of the empire, avoiding the attention of the Union Navy. With two ragged fighter craft and a small cargo ship on the verge of falling apart, he and his gang run contraband, rob ships and generally make a nuisance of themselves. So a hot tip on a cargo barque loaded with valuables seems like a great prospect for an easy heist and a fast buck ...right up until, on their opening salvo, the whole thing explodes. Suddenly Frey isn't a nuisance anymore - he's public enemy number 1 with the Union on his tail and contractors hired to take him down. Including his oldest and dealiest rival, Frey's ex-wife. But something about the explosion doesn't make sense. The barque must have been rigged to blow, and Frey's been framed to take the fall.But if he wants to prove it, he's going to have to catch the real culprit - and that means heading into the heart of the Union, and following a trail through the criminal underworld that could ultimately lead to the very top.

It's going to take all his criminal talents to prove he's not a criminal ...